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Thursday, July 3, 2014

Earth to Echo Foster Care & Adoption Movie Review

Tuck, Munch, and Alex are junior-high friends who have big
plans for their last night together. Their neighborhood is about to be
evacuated for the construction of a bypass. The loss of their neighborhood is
significant to each boy, because each of them feels somewhat displaced. Tuck is
overshadowed by his older brother and has also moved to Nevada from New York.
Munch doesn’t make friends very easily. Alex is a foster kid, who Tuck says “has
been moved all over.” All three of them are about to be moved away from their
homes, and away from each other. Recently, their cell phones have been acting
strange, displaying unusual designs. The boys decode the designs as a map, and
decide to spend their last night together trying to discover what is causing
the phones to act strange. They follow the map into the desert, and one
character admits that they are scared. While exploring, they see a faint light
and discover Echo, a scared, tiny alien who just wants to go home.

How’s This Relevant
to Foster Care and Adoption?

Alex is a foster kid. He’s been moved around from home to
home. He fears abandonment – and even gets into a fight with Tuck when Tuck
abandons him – and is also brave, loyal, and good. A true sadness of foster care shows up when
Alex is getting ready to move. Tuck enters his room and remarks that his room “looks
how it looked before you packed – all of your stuff fits in one box.” He then
asks Alex jokingly but insensitively, “What are you, a drifter?”

The impending loss shakes Tuck; he explains, “You feel like
your own person with your own friends, and then something like this comes along
and you have no power to stop it because you’re just a kid.” Kids who have been
in foster care may relate to a feeling of being disempowered.

Alex is a positive movie portrayal of a kid in foster care.

Echo is lost and wants to get home. The boys also christen
Echo with his name; they aren’t sure what his original name is.

Strengths

Alex is a great example of a positive character in foster
care. He has strength and weaknesses, and the experiences he has had in foster
care both give him vulnerabilities and newfound strengths. Alex is not
portrayed as helpless or as heroic. He is a good kid who happens to be in
foster care. He fears abandonment because of what he has experienced, but he is
loyal, brave, forgiving, and dependable. Alex is also the first of the boys to
reach out and connect with Echo. The joy on Alex’s face when he realizes that
Echo is trusting him and communicating with him is priceless. Alex teaches Echo
how to use slow breathing breathing to self-soothe himself while he’s scared. Alex
also refuses to leave Echo behind when Echo is in danger of being caught; he
explains, “I know how it feels to be left. I’m not leaving him. I know how it
feels. We’re all he’s got.” At one point, the boys are faced with a decision –
to take a huge risk and allow Echo to return home, or to play it safe. Alex is
the first one to move towards sending Echo home. As Echo prepares to leave,
Alex tells him, “I don’t really know how to say goodbye, so I’m not going to. I’m
your friend. Even when you think I’ve forgotten.”

Echo is cute, scared, and dependent. All three boys are very
nurturing towards him.

Challenges

One character is insensitive to Alex. He jokingly asks, “Why
do your foster parents need you if they already have a baby? One cries, one
listens to Indy Rock.” Alex deflects the joke and laughingly tells his friend to
shut up. This scene might hurt some viewers’ feelings, but Alex’s response is a
positive one. The same character leaves Alex behind while running from a
security guard. Later, he tells Alex, “You’re always freaking out if someone’s
gonna leave you behind.” Alex fights the boy. They later make up.

One boy fears for his life, and makes a tearful video
farewell to his friends. Although he survives, the scene might be too powerful
for some viewers who have had painful experiences of loss or peril. Echo is
placed on a dissection table.

Juvenile boys make some inappropriate jokes in real life,
and in film. One boy jokes about sleeping in the bed of another boy’s mother.
The boys do enter a home without the owner’s permission.

Weak Points

Parents in this film are not shown as sources of strength;
the boys lie to them, deceive them, and never get caught. The only adults that
the boys have regular interaction with are villains. The adults intend to prevent
Echo from returning home because he is “too valuable.”

Recommendation

Tuck expresses the film’s message right before the end
credits – that kids can do anything; that they’re not powerless. But what I see
as an even more pronounced message is that foster kids, while having real
issues, challenges, losses and sadness, can be the bravest, most loyal, most
forgiving, and most dependable of their peers, and they can turn their experiences
outward into kindness to help others in similar situations. There are some sad
and scary moments in this film, and so it should be pre-screened by parents of
kids under 7, or parents of kids who have unresolved grief about loss or peril.
However, this is a very positive film – especially, I think, positive for kids
in foster care. I give it a high recommendation for foster families with kids
between the ages of 8-14.

Questions for
Discussion

Which of the kids – Tuck, Alex, Munch, or Emma – do you like
the best? Why?

Why was each boy sad to be moving from their community?

Why did Tuck and Alex fight?

What in your life do you wish you could change? What would
be the first thing you would do to make it happen?

Do you think Alex, Tuck, and Munch will stay friends even
though they’ve moved apart?